Boris Berezovsky, Exiled Russian Tycoon, Dies

MOSCOW— Boris Berezovsky, the man who more than any other came to epitomize the oligarchs of 1990s Russia, died Saturday at a residence outside London, capping a life that saw the heights of power and wealth before witnessing diminished fortunes in exile.

Boris Berezovsky: Russian Tycoon

Mr. Berezovsky, 67, was a former academic mathematician who developed into one of Russia's best-known tycoons in an era of privatization, violence and cutthroat capitalism that defined Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

British police confirmed Mr. Berezovsky was found dead in his residence in Ascot, England, a town about 40 kilimeters west of London. An employee at the home said he found Mr. Berezovsky on Saturday afternoon, after forcing open a bathroom door that had been locked from the inside.

Police said they carried out a forensic exam of the scene, and chemical and radiation experts also searched the residence and found no hazardous materials in the home. Thames Valley Police issued a statement saying they hadn't yet determined a cause of death, but that "we do not have any evidence at this stage to suggest third-party involvement."

Mr. Berezovsky became one of the most well-known—and at times one of the most hated—public figures in President Boris Yeltsin's Russia before fleeing to Britain shortly after Vladimir Putin came to power 13 years ago. His rise came to symbolize the oligarchs, the new Kremlin-connected elite that dominated a country scarred by criminality and chaos. His fall from power in Russia coincided with the rise of Mr. Putin and the onset of a new era of centralized Kremlin control.

More recently, Mr. Berezovsky had been hard-pressed financially and was selling assets to meet enormous legal bills, which stemmed largely from a dramatic courtroom battle that he lost last year to rival tycoon and Kremlin-insider Roman Abramovich.

"He was a person who created the oligarch mentality in Russia, and he used all his money and power for his own gain," said Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister in the Yeltsin government.

ENLARGE

Boris Yeltsin presents Mr. Berezovsky as the executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Moscow in 1998.
Associated Press

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Mr. Berezovsky built his fortune by gaining effective control of Russia's largest Soviet-era car maker, Avtovaz. He was accused of siphoning billions off the company, though he always denied the charges. His company, Logovaz, became the center of his economic interests, but also a political nexus that he set up in a Moscow palace known as the Logovaz mansion. Mr. Berezovsky often received business guests there. High-level government officials could be found waiting to meet Mr. Berezovsky in the anterooms--including Mr. Putin before he became president, according to witnesses.

Often bragging of his contacts with Mr. Yeltsin's family, he became a key conduit to decision makers in the ailing and absentee president's inner circle in the late 1990s—a group known as "the family"—and for a short spell he served as a member of Russia's national security council.

He in many ways defined what it meant to be a Russian oligarch, becoming a power broker, political operator and businessman all at once. George Soros, in his book "Open Society," described how Mr. Berezovsky struggled to adapt after 1990s Russia. "Berezovsky could not make the transition to legitimacy," Mr. Soros wrote. "His only chance of survival was to keep people entangled in the web of illegitimate relationships that he had established."

One of Mr. Berezovsky's key levers of power was television. He used his connections to gain control of Russia's main TV network, then known as ORT, and employed the channel to his ends. Mr. Abramovich said the Russian government agreed to create his Sibneft oil company as a quid pro quo arranged partly by Mr. Berezovsky to help ORT. The government created Sibneft; Sibneft's profits funded ORT; and then ORT ushered Mr. Yeltsin to victory in the 1996 elections.

A few years later, Mr. Berezovsky plowed his resources behind Mr. Putin's rise to power. Mr. Berezovsky's television channel turned its attention to Mr. Putin's opponents, systematically taking them down ahead of an election that Mr. Putin handily won. The decision to bring Mr. Putin to power was one Mr. Berezovsky lived to regret. The two quickly clashed after Mr. Putin entered the Kremlin and began reining in the influence of many of Russia's more politically-threatening oligarchs. Mr. Putin in particular disliked the critical coverage leveled at him by ORT.

"Berezovsky brought Putin to power with enormous financial help but also with enormous media resources" that he controlled at the time, Mr. Nemtsov said.

In an open letter published on FacebookFB-1.26% shortly before Mr. Putin was re-elected last spring, Mr. Berezovsky recanted. "I repent and ask for forgiveness for bringing Vladimir Putin to power," Mr. Berezovsky wrote. He apologized for bringing to power "a man who trampled freedom and stopped the development of Russia." Mr. Berezovsky ultimately left Russia for Europe in late 2000, eventually settling in a mansion in London's leafy suburbs. Three years later, he was granted political asylum. From his base in the U.K., Mr. Berezovsky tried to associate himself with Russia's opposition figures, and often said he was trying to foment unrest against Mr. Putin from abroad.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, regarded him as a public enemy. A Russian court had tried and jailed him in absentia in 2007 on embezzlement charges, and Mr. Putin's repeated demands for his extradition caused strains with the U.K. government. Mr. Berezovsky called the trial a farce.

Controversy continued to swirl around Mr. Berezovsky even on British shores. He was a friend and close associate of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian security agent who died in London in 2006 after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium. Mr. Litvinenko had fled Russia after going public with allegations that Russian security services had ordered him to assassinate Mr. Berezovsky. He also worked private security for the tycoon. As his years in the U.K. continued, Mr. Berezovsky's influence waned inside Russia. He was dealt a major financial blow last year when he attempted to sue Mr. Abramovich for what he claimed was a roughly $6 billion share in their putative business interests.

The legal brawl kicked off when Mr. Berezovsky—who had been trying to serve Mr. Abramovich with a writ for months to no avail—was shopping at Dolce & Gabanna in London and spotted the rival tycoon at a nearby Hermès boutique. Mr. Berezovsky quickly retrieved the writ from his limo and served Mr. Abramovich the papers.

At the time of the trial, Mr. Abramovich characterized Mr. Berezovsky as a mafia kingpin who in exchange for money provided high-level connections and protection—known in Russia as a "krysha." Mr. Berezovsky denied those allegations. The court ruled against him. "I found Mr. Berezovsky an unimpressive, and inherently unreliable, witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be molded to suit his current purposes," High Court Justice Elizabeth Gloster said at the time.

Because the loser often pays the winner's legal fees in British court battles, Mr. Berezovsky became saddled with millions in legal fees. The late tycoon agreed to pay £35 million ($53.2 million) of Mr. Abramovich's fees in an agreement announced by the High Court late last year. That came just a couple of years after he lost a divorce battle to his former wife, Galina, in what was reported to be one of the U.K.'s biggest divorce settlements.

There are signs Mr. Berezovsky was reassessing his life in the past year. "Years of exile have allowed me to take a different look at my life, the life of my country and become keenly aware that without repentance, without the recognition of past mistakes, without the courage to build a future, there is no development," he wrote, issuing a series of apologies for his past deeds.

Mikhail Kozyrev, a radio and TV presenter who worked with Mr. Berezovsky for years, said he spoke to him by phone in London in the last few weeks and was surprised to find him "depressed."

"He had suddenly and unexpectedly parted with the hope that he would ever see the homeland that he loved again," Mr. Kozyrev said. "He told me, 'I don't think I will ever go back."

On Saturday, Russian Forbes columnist Ilya Zhegulev published what he said was likely the last interview with Mr. Berezovsky, conducted on Friday night. Mr. Zhegulev's interview appeared to describe a fallen tycoon searching for meaning and hoping to go home.

"I want nothing more than to return to Russia," Mr. Berezovsky said in the interview. Later, Mr. Berezovsky said: "I don't know what to do. I'm 67 years old. And I don't know what to do next."

He said he had lost the meaning of life.

On Saturday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested Mr. Berezovsky had experienced a change of heart in recent months after years of criticizing Mr. Putin.

"Not long ago, maybe a few months ago, Berezovsky sent Vladimir Putin a personally-written letter, in which he admitted that he made many mistakes, asked Putin to forgive him for these mistakes and requested help in returning to his motherland," Mr. Peskov said in comments to state TV.

However, Tim Bell, a London public-relations guru and longtime friend of Mr. Berezovsky, said it is highly unlikely Mr. Berezovsky would have sent such a letter. "I'm sure that is complete and utter fabrication. I have no doubt at all," he said.

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